JUST WHAT DOES THE PALACE OF THE REPUBLIC MEAN TO US TODAY? The Palace of the Republic was the
building that most exemplified political power in East Germany. The governmental and cultural
centre was both the seat of the Volkskammer - the parliament and highest organ of East
Germany's state power - and a meeting place with an art gallery theatre large auditorium
restaurants cafés a disco bowling alley post office and telephone booths. From 1976 until
its controversial demolition in the mid-2000s it stood on the very site in the centre of
Berlin where the Humboldt Forum is today. With interviews a wide range of essays and
atmospheric images this book takes a closer look at a vanished place so charged with both
symbolism and personal memories that it remains present. -Famed and defamed removed and
remembered: the Berlin Palace of the Republic -Berlin between GDR past and present day -Talking
about asbestos Udo Lindenberg utopia and paranoia -The architectural icon and its meaning
for us today in essays interviews and atmospheric images -Exhibition at the Humboldt Forum
Berlin: 17 May 2024-16 February 2025 ASSEMBLE AND DISMANTLE: A POWERFUL REMINDER OF THE END OF
THE GDR Even long after its disappearance this site of collective remembrance brings questions
to the surface about how we deal with the history of a formerly divided country. The book
follows the various stages in the history of the building: from its planning and construction
to its use as a multi-purpose governmental and cultural building from its significance as the
seat of the first freely elected Volkskammer in 1990 to its demolition which was completed in
2008. Numerous interviews with a diverse range of people take centre stage. Prominent and
previously unheard voices are featured: from architects and construction managers to creative
professionals and visitors. The book shows the perspectives of those who worked in the palace
visited it or deliberately avoided it. Furnishings designs and works of art show the traces
of the various uses of the building from cups for iced coffee from the famous milk bar to the
painting The Red Flag by Willi Sitte. MULTI-FACETED AND NUANCED: A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH Blown
Away - The Palace of the Republic explores aspects such as closeout sales construction site
ghosts Glass Flower Global South identity interim use lighting system Marx & Engels
palaces of culture reconstruction Stasi and more. Recent research artistic contributions
and personal interviews open new perspectives. The Palace of the Republic thereby emerges as an
all-German topic. With texts by Victoria Helene Bergemann Aron Boks Gesine Danckwart Hanno
Hochmuth Dagmar Hovestädt Zsófia Kelm Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk Yevheniia Moliar Chen Shuyu
Gülsah Stapel Oliver Sukrow Bruno Torres Uljana Wolf and curators from the Stiftung
Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss among others. With photographic works by Tobias Kruse.
